Shambala
by TopKat
Summary: "You're a Buddhist now?" Cas shrugged, trailing his fingers over the smooth gold head of the Buddha statuette. He tapped it affectionately before he turned to look at Dean, who once again was in his cabin, completely unannounced. "Sure. Why not? I figure, keep trying; something's gotta stick." (destiel, end!verse, pwp)


"You're a Buddhist now?"

Cas shrugged, trailing his fingers over the smooth gold head of the Buddha statuette. He tapped it affectionately before he turned to look at Dean, who once again was in his cabin, completely unannounced. "Sure. Why not? I figure, keep trying; something's gotta stick."

"So what, I come back in a week and you'll be Jewish?" he hung in the doorway, hesitant, fingers tightening and releasing on the frame, looking around the hut, instead of at Cas. Cas walked up to him and stood in his eyeline, forcing him to break eye contact with the Buddha, and to look at him, instead.

"No Abrahamic faiths. Did you need something?" he leaned close, partly to piss Dean off, partly because he never really broke the habit. Dean's eyes landed on Cas' bed, its sheets dishevelled, and he frowned.

"Are you…busy?"

Cas followed his gaze, turning his head, then laughed. "Not today." He looked back at Dean and grinned. "Did you come here to change that?"

"Chuck wants you for a food run." He replied, expression more weary than angry, steadfastly not reacting to the way that Cas had taken the edge of his jacket in hand, and was playing with the zipper as he talked. "You should meet him by the jeep, if you're going." He looked down at Cas' hand. "Leave it."

Cas dropped the coat, raised his eyes to Dean's face; his jaw was tighter than usual, voice slightly strained, brows creasing. Maybe today wasn't the best for messing around. "I'll get my stuff. Think we'll run into any trouble?" he crossed the room, leaving Dean in the doorway to get his duffle and holster from where they were tucked next to the bed, along with the boots Dean had given him so long ago, when he'd first started to Fall and his sensible shoes just didn't cut it anymore. He sat on the bed and pulled one of the heavy black boots on, duffle already shouldered.

"Just a routine run. Take a gun, though."

"Right." He looked across the room and met Dean's eyes properly, finally, but it was only for the barest of seconds before Dean turned away, and left, his message delivered. Cas watched his retreating back with a frown.

Xxx

The worst thing about Croats, he decided, was that they had a habit of appearing _exactly _when you thought you were safe.

He knew what was happening even as Chuck rounded the corner onto the aisle he was on, his canvas shoes squeaking and slipping on the slick surface of the floor. There was a huge hole in the ceiling; fuck knew how it had gotten there but there it was, dripping rain over everything. Chuck's wail upon seeing the rows and rows of mouldy, damp toilet paper had been the sound of a man experiencing true anguish. When he came tearing towards Cas, however, his expression was hopeless in an entirely different way.

"Cas!" he shouted, _stupidly, _and Cas barely had time to gather as many tins of food in his arms as possible before the low murmuring began. Chuck stopped, stock-still, in the aisle before he reached Cas, eyes wide and dark, jaw slack with fear.

It always began with a murmur when they were fucked.

Cas worked a hand free from his precious cargo, surged forward and seized Chuck by the wrist before tugging him along behind, his own shoes slipping now, too, despite how the boots were built for grip; the floor was all but frictionless beneath him, so unstable that every pounding step felt inches from calamity. He sucked in breath, lungs burning, and clutched the cans harder to his chest as he ran for the exits, Chuck in tow.

"How many?" he rasped under his breath, trying to keep quiet, though it hardly made much difference anymore. He resisted the temptation to glance behind; if there was nothing in front, they might still get out.

"I don't know." Chuck's voice was at his ear, high and hysterical. Cas found the loaded cart they'd left in another aisle and pushed it as hard as he could, but it was slowing them down. "Thirty, maybe. They were just – just waiting, Cas, I had no idea-"

"It's okay." He breathed, letting go of Chuck's hand, hoping he would keep pace as he pushed the cart. They bolted down the frozen produce aisle, halogen lights flickering overhead, alternately plunging them into darkness and unnatural blue light. There was so much here they could have used, and Cas felt the loss of it acutely, even as he ran.

Chuck sprinted ahead and pushed the faulty sliding doors so that there was space enough for him to come thought; he stood waiting, keeping them open as Cas wrestled with the cart's uneven wheels, trying to keep it on course enough to just get to the car – _just get to the car – _and go. He fantasised he could feel the hot breath of a Croat on his neck as he burst through the doors, past Chuck, out into the light. Chuck let the door shut behind him as they ran, but it wouldn't hold for long.

He almost tipped the car as he skidded across asphalt to the keep; Chuck hopped into the driver's seat and started the engine as Cas threw everything they'd salvaged roughly into the trunk. Sure, he'd break a couple of things, but at least he'd be alive to get reprimanded for it.

As he threw the last few bags of beef jerky (non-perishable, a source of protein, easily stored) into the back, he heard Chuck frantically calling his name. he turned just in time to catch the Croat that was gunning for him with the cart, grabbing its edge and slamming it so hard into the creature's side that his fingers felt as if they'd been yanked from their sockets. It fell to the ground, gurgling, and with his hands now free, he pulled the gun from his holster and shot the thing, twice, point-blank between the eyes. He had time to grimace at the pinkish splatter all over his pants before he slammed the trunk shut and ran to the passenger seat as another Croat started to draw level with them.

Chuck took off so fast that for a split second their wheels were spinning against the parking lot; as they left, Cas rolled down the window and leaned out, pistol at the ready, eyes trained on the back of the car to make sure there were no hangers-on (it wouldn't be the first time).

Chuck breathed a sigh when he leaned back in. "Shit." He muttered, as the car tore up the deserted roads, not slowing his pace in the least. He weaved between abandoned Volvos; it had been school pickup time when this particular town died. "What were they doing there?" Chuck gasped, and Cas shook his head.

"I have no idea." He put his arm out of the open window, heart still pounding, and trailed his fingers in the slipstream. "I didn't get as much as I said we would."

Chuck ran a hand up his face, into his hair, as he drove. "Our fearless leader is gonna fucking kill us."

Xxx

"Cas?"

He wasn't exactly in _bed _when Dean knocked on his door at 3am, but he'd been pretty damned close. He stumbled to the door, pulling on a shirt, eyes bleary, almost sober. Dean looked at him and then ducked his head to avoid colliding with a dream catcher as he walked inside. Cas shut the door after him and stood with his back to it, watching. Dean paced. Cas coughed. "To what do I owe the pleasure? Not that you need a reason, or anything, I guess."

Dean stood awkwardly a little way from him, and cleared his throat. "What happened today?"

Cas winced. He ran a hand over his own jawline. "Look, Dean, I'm sorry, but we got what we could."

"Chuck said there were thirty, forty Croats."

Cas nodded. "Close to."

Dean nodded absently, pacing again, looking at the floor. "You never thought to radio in?"

"There wasn't time."

Dean's face jerked up to look at him. "You should have been ready."

"It was just a routine run." He growled in response, unsure as to why he was getting the third degree over a Croat ambush at three in the fucking morning. Dean shook his head.

"It's _never _a routine run. You should know better."

Cas bristled. "So, what, you woke me up to bark at me? This couldn't wait until morning?"

Dean walked over and stared him down, reminding Cas of how much taller he was. "You weren't asleep." He said, throwaway, and Cas narrowed his eyes.

"Still doesn't mean you can come in here whenever you fucking want. I could have been _busy." _ He leered. "I know how that bothers you."

"You can do whatever the fuck you want, Cas. It's nothing to do with me."

Cas squared up to him, snarling in the face of his sudden dismissiveness, with the way in which he retreated whenever the conversation turned to sex, the sanctimonious prick. "Yes. And whose fucking fault is that?"

Dean opened his mouth to retort and then stepped back, away, out of threatening space. He sighed. "Cas.", voice suddenly soft and strange; the backs of his legs hit the bed and he sat down on it tiredly, as if his legs could hold him no longer. He looked at his hands. Cas watched him with suspicion. "I didn't come here to attack you."

"You've got a weird way of going about it." There was silence. Cas allowed his defensiveness to lower; let go of the tension in his hands and spine. He took a step forward, just one, then went no further.

"I found him." Dean said in a rush of breath, almost inaudible. "I found the devil."

Not 'I found Sam', Not 'I found Lucifer'. The way Dean told it, it was as if neither of their brothers was involved at all. Which, Cas supposed, was almost true.

He said nothing; he padded across the floor in his bare feet, and when he got to the bed he stopped. He crouched on the rug, then kneeled in front of him, and rested an arm on Dean's knees. Dean didn't look up. He reached up a hand to cup the side of Dean's face, and sighed tiredly when Dean turned in to his palm. "This is a good thing." Dean looked up at his words, eyes filled with grief, and then he pressed his lips, gently, to the heel of Cas' hand.

"I know."

Cas leaned up like it was natural, though for all his jokes, all his perceptiveness, he never thought they'd actually get here. He leaned up, and pressed his stomach against Dean's knees, and kissed him.

They were still. Dean raised a hand and brought it to rest – tentatively, neutrally – on Cas' shoulder. And then he pressed closer, nudged forward, shuffling slightly on the bed, and opened his mouth, turning into the kiss.

With his eyes closed Cas wished he'd never learnt the etiquette – wished he could kiss with his eyes open now, like he did the first time. Wished he could experience this as the new, unprecedented, cataclysmic _event _it was supposed to be, because this was _Dean – _his quarry, his brother, his lieutenant, his friend – but there had been other kisses, other people, and that was something he couldn't change. He was content, then, to push his tongue slowly against Dean's – to breathe in deep through his nose as a rush went through him, giddy. He rose from his knees, moved forward, Dean acquiescing, encouraging, moving back as Cas pushed him. He crawled over Dean's thighs and kissed him deeper, drew breath only when necessary, enraptured by his movements; his slow, reverent, clutching hands; the delicacy and desperation with which he touched.

For all his gung-ho attitude, there was a gentleness to the way that Dean reacted to touch, to the way he touched other people. Like they'd be his last, though they rarely were. Cas supposed – he _knew – _that it was the product of a life lived in uncertainty, but he found it no less endearing.

Dean slid a hand over his shirt, down his back, into the back of his loose, drawstring pants, the other still at Cas' shoulder. When Cas broke away – left him space to breathe, to think – his expression was one of someone entirely, totally lost. "Sorry." He said. Cas kissed his jaw, moved down to kiss his throat, then opened his mouth over his clavicle.

"Why?" he murmured against it; a heartbeat on his lips.

"It's been so long." He said, and Cas looked up at him and smirked.

"You're out of practise?"

Dean smiled at that, and pulled him up with a hand at his jaw to kiss his mouth. "You and me, you _dick."_

Cas' smile turned amused. "How long has it been, exactly?" He said it into Dean's mouth, and drew away to let him reply.

"Six years. Give or take."

"Don't tell me you liked me when I was a square."

Dean closed his eyes, kissed him again. Started to tug up the hem of his shirt; Cas sat up to let him, and Dean followed. "Always." He said, like it was a secret, or a surprise. Another kiss; brief; before he pulled back. "Always." Soft. He pulled Cas' shirt over his head, and threw it across the room. Cas turned his attention to getting Dean's fly undone; the material, like the flesh within, was hot under his hand. He couldn't ignore Dean's hitched breath when he splayed the zipper open, when he pulled his jeans and boxers all the way down his legs, stopping where his heavy black boots got in the way. He pulled at the laces; Dean watched. He started laughing.

Dean sat up, cock bobbing hard against his stomach, leaving wet trails on his grey shirt, which was still on; his jacket was only a little rumpled, still on his shoulders. "Word of advice, Cas; don't get a guy's pants off and then start laughing."

Cas pulled one boot off, then the other, then stripped Dean's jeans away, pulling them over his socked feet. He let them be; moved to kiss the side of Dean's knee, then up to nose at the hair on his thigh, opened his mouth on the tendon there, tongue pressing flat to it. Dean's breath went still. "Sorry." He said to his skin, smelling sweat and the beginnings of the thick musk of sex already, because _jesus_ it really had been six years, and he was only just realising now. "It's just – this." He leaned up, a frightening thought occurring to him. "You want this, right? This isn't some weird…" he refrained from saying 'brother-thing', but there were no other words, so he let it hang.

"Of course I fucking want this." Dean shrugged out of his jacket, then pulled his shirt off over his head from the bottom. He looked different to when Cas had last seen him naked; then he'd been new, but now he was all scars again, new tattoos criss-crossing his body, wounds still flushed and recent. But Cas had changed too, and it made no difference. This was still Dean, _his _Dean, who was sliding his loose pants down his legs as he kissed him again; Cas kicked them away. Sitting between Dean's splayed thighs he leaned forward so they were chest to chest; kissed at his jaw, stopped for a moment, paused above his mouth, when their cocks came into contact, both of them slick, messy, breathing raggedly as he ground down against him. Dean said his name – _Cas, _then, _Castiel, _- and the heat that surged through him was unparalleled, nothing he'd felt since he'd fallen. He shifted into the space next to Dean's thigh, fucked into the sweat that had gathered there, happy just to get off like this; to be pressed length-to-length against him, kissing open-mouthed, almost missing in his eagerness. Dean seemed content, too, moving against him, meeting him movement for movement, until he shuddered a breath and muttered, "Cas. Cas." Urgently. Cas paused, the two of them still pressed together, skin still thrumming pleasantly against Dean's, a thousand little heartbeats all over. "We should-" he looked a little devastated. "You, uh, got any mind-reading mojo left? Because I'd love not to have to ask."

Cas stared at him blankly, then realised what he was asking for. "You want to-"

"Yeah. I mean, it's been awhile, but – yeah."

Cas blinked, strangely honoured by how carefully his words were being chosen. Whether or not it was because Dean thought he might die the next day, he didn't know. "Give me a second." He pulled himself off Dean, crawled across the bed to his dresser, ruining the romance of the moment somewhat – but it didn't really matter all that much. Romance and timing, Cas had found, were seriously overrated in the midst of the apocalypse. If Dean was surprised at all that he had lube and condoms, he didn't show it. He paused when he retrieved them, and looked back at Dean. "Are you sure?"

"Please stop asking."

Cas grinned at him and crawled back; swung a leg over Dean's thigh with more confidence than he'd had before, spurred on by Dean's enthusiasm or just by the fact that it was _happening; _he settled himself between Dean's legs and tore the packets open; rolled the condom on as carefully as he could, then coated his fingers liberally with the lube, as Dean watched. "You've done this before?" he asked, genuinely interested. Dean made an uncomfortable noise.

"A few years ago."

Cas looked at him, eyebrow raised, but didn't ask; Dean clearly wasn't into talking about it. "Okay." He leaned down, kissed the base of Dean's cock and earned himself a moan, then moved down, further, and hefted one of Dean's legs onto his shoulder. He worked the one finger inside him painfully slowly; Dean urged him on, impatient, but he was careful, moving it in and out of the tight rim of muscle, bringing a second in only when Dean swore, and scissoring them inside him. He lowered his mouth to where his fingers moved in and out of Dean's body and flickered his tongue across it, causing Dean to curse again.

"_Shit. _Cas-" he bucked in surprise, and Cas held him steady with a hand on his stomach. "_Cas,_" he said again, breathy, and Cas brought a third finger in, tongue and fingers fucking in and out, fingers crooked to find the spot that made Dean hiss and moan again. "Cas, _please, _I'm-" Cas relented; it was _fun _to see Dean undone like this; it was the same thrill he got out of teasing him, out of making him mad. Pulling him apart, making him something other than their imperturbable leader, something _human. _Dean twisted and clutched at the sheets, head pressed back against the bed, eyes squeezed shut with the effort. "Fuck me. If you're going to do it, Cas, fucking _do it." _His tone was defeated, wrecked, raspy.

Cas smiled, forehead against Dean's thigh. "Didn't quite catch that." Dean jerked his leg as if to kick him, then drew breath in anticipation as Cas got up from underneath him; withdrew his fingers, finally, and leaned as close as he could to Dean's face as he pushed inside.

For a moment he just had to get his bearings; the surrealness of the whole thing was still digging at the back of his mind; Dean had a leg hooked over his shoulder and he was pushing him closer with his heel, urging him on, eyes shut at first and then cracking open once Cas actually got his bearings together enough to _move. _And then it was half over; there'd been so much building, so much invested in this one, inevitable thing that he could barely contain himself; he went slow at first, barely moving at all, adjusting; even when he started to draw out and in in earnest he did so slowly, muscles straining with the heat of it, with the way that Dean was, by this point, practically _growling _his name under his breath. He hit the right place inside Dean and it was like someone had punched him; he groaned, pushed himself up as best he could to look at Cas, and the destroyed, _devastated _expression on his face was what finally spurred him into real action; he moved faster, took Dean's cock in his hand and jacked him, making noise he would be mortified to hear played back to him; Dean said his name, his full name, _Castiel, Castiel, Castiel, _and it was the final straw; Cas' movements grew shocky and erratic – before he even knew it, it was over, Dean spilling warm over his hand just seconds before he did the same. He could barely catch his breath in the moment, air drawing in but not going out, hearing nothing but the sounds of Dean's ragged breathing, coming just a shred of a second after his own.

With the height difference it was hard to lean up and kiss him; he moved a little in the aftermath, riding it out, then pulled out and rolled the condom off, tied it in a knot and tossed it away; he'd clean later. It wasn't important.

He didn't know what to do, now. He let the leg drop from his shoulder, where his foot, still in a sock, thudded dully onto the bedcovers, and kneeled in the vee of Dean's legs. They stared at each other. Just like old times.

"Was that a good idea?" Dean asked him; for a moment Cas thought he was joking – he was buzzing, skin thrumming and alive, and _yes_, of _course_ it was a fucking good idea_, how could it not be_? – but then he thought about it and his brain stopped whirring and he pursed his lips.

"I don't know." He frowned. "I hope so." He crawled up to hold his face above Dean's, then dipped in gently and kissed him; no tongue, no teeth. Just what he'd imagined when he was an angel, when it was all he could hope for. A kiss. Nothing more, nothing less.

Fatigue seized him like a giant hand, squeezing, and he rolled off Dean to lie beside him, staring at the ceiling.

"I haven't heard that name in so long." He muttered to the brown boards above them, scarcely aware of what he was saying.

Dean said nothing, and a moment after, he snored.

Xxx

Cas woke in the morning and was unsurprised to be alone.

He was pretty used to it; had been on the other end of it, too, and had ruined plenty of friendships before; enough to know that the worst thing he could do was dwell on it. He'd woken before Dean, anyway; slept for a couple of hours (he'd never quite gotten the hang of a full eight) and then slid naked from the bed and went to look at himself in the mirror, having some crazy notion that he'd changed.

He hadn't. Same skin, same house, same lonely occupant behind the eyes. He went back to bed no worse for wear, slid under the sheets and curled into a ball, trying not to touch any part of Dean, not knowing what was appropriate.

In the (very) harsh light of day, he gathered his stained sheets together in a ball and tossed them into the corner; found the condom and disposed of it, had a shower, put some fucking clothes on. He tried not to think about the one image from last night that was really sticking; the bare, unblemished skin of Dean's shoulder, where no handprint had existed for years, now.

Dean came by later in the day, face drawn and stoic, apology in his eyes, though he didn't say it.

"We found the colt." He said quietly, hanging in the doorway, and Cas went to get his duffle without a second thought. "Could be a hundred, two hundred Croats." He paused. "You coming?"

Cas looked at him for a long moment; imagined him undone under his hands, imagined cradling his soul in hell, the years they'd spent together in the Pit, that Dean had forgotten. He had smiled last night; or maybe Cas had just imagined it. He had said such wonderful, ridiculous things.

Cas sighed, and grinned, and pushed his way past Dean, out into the sunshine and the mud.

"Of course."


End file.
